Crime Lab Scandals Across the Country

Crime Lab Scandals Across the Country

Posted By
Sarah Toney

This is not a criminal defense issue. This is a science issue. And it spans across the country.

Back in 2009 two agencies who are not at all affiliated with criminal defense recommended Congress fix the serious forensic science issues labs were having across the country. Those agencies were the National Research Council (NRC) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

They recommended the creation of a federal scientific agency which would have oversight over local and state laboratories and create mandatory, standardized accreditation for all labs and certification for lab analysts. Equally as important, the agencies recommended the creation of independent labs because they found the labs today often have bias in favor of the prosecutions.

However, lawmakers have not adopted these recommendations, and innocent people have suffered. Each week, new lab scandals come to light about analyst's misconduct or scientific standards not being followed. Here are just a few problems with labs that have been discovered and they include the federal FBI lab, California, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Texas.

When someone's liberty is on the line, don't crime labs have a duty to act scientifically and free from bias?